House Hunters
By Kevin Prufer
I love the crown molding and the white granite countertops.
And look, dear! Stainless steel appliances! Don’t you love them?
It’s such a perfect apartment, and, in every room, a coffered ceiling.
And don’t you love the pink twin sinks, like porcelain scallops?
And listen to the faucets,
like the rush of a waterfall heard through thick woods just as the birds began to sing early one morning years ago in the hills outside Florence.
Where are you going?
Love fills me the way the sun surprises the room when I pull the string and the curtains open.
Pinch-pleat curtains, crinkle-voile, semi-opaque, and sheer! Soft as love when I stroke them, warm as love against my cheek, a scent of spring rain gentling the petunias when I wrap myself in them
until I cannot see, until I cannot move my arms or legs.
Of course, I’d love to see the guest bedroom with its walk-in closet and built-in shoe shelf, its en suite bath with the whirlpool tub!
Let me just wipe my eyes on these curtains. Let me just untangle.
The view through this window is so lovely, the far fingers of smoke trembling over the distant city where the workers—
rich black thoughts pour from the smokestacks is all I have to say about the workers.
No, sorry, I’m still here, wrapped in the curtains. They were so alluring,
voluptuous, really, if curtains can be voluptuous against bare skin. You continue with the tour, dear,
and I’ll be along presently. The sky is rose chiffon, the clouds like pressed flowers above the smokestacks,
just leave me here, restrained and lavished at once! And the window, with its inviting coolness
to the tongue. To my tongue. It’s like I am licking those smokestacks!
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Good Friday started with chilly temperatures and had a forecast below freezing overnight, so we decided early in the day that after work, laundry, and all such exciting things, we would take a walk in nearby neighborhoods to see the remaining cherry blossoms in case they froze before the weekend. In the meantime we watched the latest awful things happening at the Capitol, then the delayed Orioles season opener, which they won against the Red Sox, so that was nice. And then we drove over to these lovely tree-lined streets, which still have lots of daffodils, forsythia, and Lenten roses, plus some pretty outdoor art:
In between the women's NCAA basketball semifinal games, in which I was sorry Dawn Staley's Gamecocks did not win but I'm delighted the coaches of both teams in the final will be women, we watched The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Minor spoilers: Sam has all the best lines ("I can't run in these heels!" "They [pardoned] the bionic staring machine and he's killed almost everybody he's met!"), the women on this show are without exception awesome (including the ostensible villain, whom they have gone out of the way to humanize), and Sam is allowed to kill [the one they should have guarded better] for the drink with the snake!
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